I am so angry. With myself. Since I needed to drop out of the program at the hospital, I've been winging it. I've had my good days and my bad days. Yesterday I thought was one of my rather good days. It wasn't.
Several people have been encouraging me to get on Sparkpeople and check out what that site has to offer. To be honest, the site is just too busy visually for me to feel comfortable using it. It's like visual claustrophobia. That said, I did find my way to the nutritional section and I decided to plug in everything I ate yesterday. Now, I thought I had done real well. Portion control, guessed at my calories, my grams of carbs and proteins. I thought I had consumed about 1500 calories. Well, after I plugged in my foods, I found I had consumed more than twice that.
OMG, I've been on this journey for more than 2 years and I still don't have clue as to how much I am eating in terms of calories consumed. I am terrified of eating today for fear of going overboard. I don't want to use Sparkpeople's meal plans as I simply can't afford the diverse shopping list it would require for me, and then the normal shopping for the rest of the family. Portion control is pretty much what I'm limited to, though choices of lean proteins and complex carbs can always play a role.
Clydes, That's why I decided to stick with SP, even though I was initially resistant. All the other times I'd tried nutritional management (no more "dieting" because that has too much of a connotation of starvation), I had been doing guesswork or tallying in my head. I don't use the SP menus, and I haven't been buying too many different things.
ReplyDeleteThis is just FYI, not a cry of, "You must use SP!"
P.S. Everyone, Clydes helped get me out of a funk the other day. I wrote, "I'm suffering from one of the big seven sins: Envy. Or maybe I just covet my neighbor's calves." He replied, "Your neighbor has cattle?" I laughed and realized how self-absorbed I was being. I refer now to my lower legs as "the cattle."
Just don't say, "Moo" when I walk by. I will not like it.
get yourself a food scale and go to calorie king. Then you can weigh your food and determine it's caloric value..no fancy nothing. avoid breaded meat and white carbs and it's alot easier to keep your calories under control.
ReplyDeleteNo fear.
I know that feeling... I've done it before - tried hard, measured, plugged it all in at the eend of the day and BAM! all of a sudden I feel like I've learned nothing this whole time....
ReplyDeleteIt sucks.
If I really want to lose I have to track everything as I eat it... it's the only thing that works for me.
SparkPeople isn't for everyone. I know what you mean about the visual business of the site -- it's one thing that turned me off about it for some time. I only ended up finally using it because of the nutrition calculator, and worked into using the fitness tracker and some other features.
ReplyDeleteFind what works for you. cmoursler had good suggestions. I've got a food scale and a ton of measuring cups, both fluid and solid, and using those solidly has helped me to know what 4 ounces of meat looks like, what a cup of vegetables looks like, what half a cup of pasta looks like.
Of course, that said it's dinner and after I finish eating I'll have under 90 calories left for the day. I meant to have twice that. Bleah.
Hi there! Just found your blog. Personally, I was a little overwhelmed with Sparkpeople. I tried a few different online calorie counters and have decided I *really* like MyPlate at livestrong.com It is so easy to use and doesn't take much time at all. Practically every food I eat and brand I can fathom is in there, and you can even, if you choose, enter your own recipes and "save" meals that you eat over and over. I love it..plus the site has some great articles. Have you checked this site out before?
ReplyDeleteHi Julie and thanks for dropping by! I've not been to livestrong but I will certainly check it out. Thanks for the suggestion.
ReplyDelete